Oregon Chapter of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) to co-host Oregon Climatologist Dr. Phil Mote in Counterpoint Meeting on Global Climate Change April 10th at Portland State University

Portland, Oregon (March 28th 2012) – “The Oregon Chapter of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) is proud to announce that it will co-host a two hour meeting at Portland State University with Oregon Climatologist Dr. Phil Mote. This educational meeting will explore humans role in global climate change and is being co-hosted with the Sigma Xi Columbia-Willamette Chapter. This public meeting will take place on Tuesday, April 10th from 7-9pm and is being billed as, “The Scientific Case for Human Influence on Global Climate: What We Learn From Analyzing ALL The Evidence.” Joining Dr. Mote will be Andreas Schmittner, Oregon State University Professor of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences and Dr. Christina Hulbe, Professor of Geology at Portland State University.”

“The panel plans to give a single joint presentation that will educate attendees on the influence humans have on climate, as backed by scientific evidence. The panel may also raise counterpoints to data presented at a similar Oregon AMS meeting last January. In that meeting, the Oregon Chapter of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) hosted a panel of scientists that asked the question, “Is Human Caused Global Warming the Greatest Scientific Myth of Our Generation?” A capacity audience of 500 attended the meeting, which was the single largest in the chapters sixty-five year history. The Oregon AMS chapter is committed to examining all the evidence with regards to climate change. To that end, our mission statement reads, “The purpose of this society shall be to advance professional ideals in the science of meteorology and to promote the development, exchange, and application of meteorological knowledge.” By presenting all sides of this topic we hope the public will become better educated regarding global climate change. There is still a large divide amongst the general public on what is the primary driver behind climate change. We hope our series of meetings this year will dispel some of the long standing climate change myths, while confirming others with solid scientific evidence. No matter what their personal view of climate change was, attendees of our first meeting in January were cordial and an informational meeting ensued. We anticipate the same level of professionalism from our April 10th meeting and encourage all those who are interested to attend. This is the first presentation given by Dr. Mote to the Oregon AMS chapter since the George Taylor / Phil Mote debate at OMSI in January of 2007. We are honored to host Dr. Mote and his colleagues and look forward to a great evening. This meeting is free and open to the general public. Please arrive early for best seating, as a large turnout is expected. Regional media is encouraged to cover this event and link directly to our web site for the latest meeting updates.”

The Oregon Chapter of the American Meteorological Society is the single largest non-collegiate based state AMS chapter in the country, with more than 180 total members. Membership in this society is open to persons who are interested in the active support of the advance professional ideals in the science of meteorology and the development, exchange, and application of meteorological knowledge. Membership dues are just $7 per year. If you would like to find out more information about the Oregon Chapter of the American Meteorological Society please see: http://www.ametsoc.org/chapters/oregon. For more information on the Sigma Xi Columbia-Willamette Chapter please see: http://sx-cw.org.

WHEN: Tuesday, April 10th 2012 7-9pm. Note – A large audience is expected. Please arrive early for the best seating.

WHERE: Portland State University “Grand Ballroom” inside the Smith Memorial Student Union Building. The grand ballroom is located on the third floor, room #355. For a PSU campus map, click: http://tinyurl.com/7a54h5q. For driving directions to PSU click: http://tinyurl.com/zeuhw. Parking is available on Parking Structure #1 (see campus map link above). Access to Smith Memorial Student Union Building from Parking Structure #1 can be had via the sky bridge on level 4 of the parking structure (see campus map link above). Street parking is also available.

AGENDA: Exploring the scientific case for human influence on global climate. Guest speakers may also raise counterpoints to the January 2012 Oregon AMS meeting on climate change seen at: http://tinyurl.com/6vk27km. A Q&A session will be held at the end of the meeting.

COST: Free and open to the general public. This educational meeting is being co-hosted with the Sigma Xi Columbia-Willamette Chapter: http://sx-cw.org

39 thoughts on “Oregon State Climatologist to be on heated panel April 10th”

The hyper-caustic gall of the Warmista establishment in promulgating Soviet-style professions of balance and objectivity while aggressively doing everything to make sure “The Fix” is always In is outrageously nauseating. I’d have to be tranked to the eyeballs to sit through one of those sessions.

So the theme is to be: “What We Learn From Analyzing ALL The Evidence”? If anybody gets a chance to attend, I recommend asking them why all of the IPCC reports fail to include the numerous findings of a high degree of correlation between solar activity and global temperature going back many thousands of years. I have documented this omission in the first draft of AR5 here:

What these reports do is look at the evidence for particular mechanisms by which solar-magnetic activity has been hypothesized to drive climate claim (tendentiously) that these particular theories are insufficiently supported. This dissatisfaction with the evidence for any particular theory of how solar activity could be driving climate is then used as a cover for their complete omission of the overwhelming evidence that there is SOME mechanism by which solar activity drives climate.

They put theory (their dissatisfaction with the particular available theories) over evidence, to the point of actually excluding the solar-temperature correlation evidence from their reports. Evidence is supposed to trump theory, not vice versa. That’s the scientific method. What these people are doing is actual, definitional, anti-science, and if you ask them, they’ll even say it. They’ll tell you their excuses for omitting the correlation evidence. That would be a nice revelation for the audience, in a talk that is supposedly about “ALL the evidence.”

A second excuse they use is that the sun can’t have caused late 20th century warming because solar activity remained basically level after 1950, as if 50 years of the highest solar activity on record couldn’t possibly have caused warming (when the hypothesis they are addressing is that solar activity does cause warming). But forget how stupid that excuse is. Again the point is that there can be NO excuse for omitting the overwhelming evidence that there is SOME mechanism by which solar activity drives climate.

Their own talk will undoubtedly have omitted that evidence, and them explaining their excuses for this omission should make for a compelling you-tube moment.

Given Dr. Mote’s vicious Watermelon (“Green on the outside, Red to the core”) political vitriol when in 2010 Dr. Robinson secured the Republican Party (and Constitution Party and Libertarian Party) nominations for the U.S. House of Representatives in Oregon’s 4th District, and as Dr. Robinson is continuing the effort in the present election cycle, the presence of Art Robinson in this “open to the general public” convocation ought to crash the YouTube servers as soon as the videos go online.

No disrespect to Dr. Hulbe, but “Sustainability” and “Science Communication” are not geology courses and have no place in a geology curriculum. “Global Environmental Change” and “Numerical Modeling of Earth Systems” could be really interesting, if taught by a gifted professor. However, when they’re part of a ‘geology’ curriculum that includes “Sustainability” and “Science Communication”, they just set off red flags for me.

As long as Schmittner can force these ‘scientists’ to stick to testable hypotheses supported by empirical data, he should do fine.

Alec Rawls says:
March 28, 2012 at 5:36 pm
==========================
Thanks Alec, I use your posts quite often and found it very useful.

i could not understand why the “team” worked so hard to maintain the deeply flawed HS reconstructions, flat lining T and CO2, while discounting solar as very minor, with strictly a linear relationship to TSI. Then I understood that the IPCC models in all probability can NOT generate a MWP with all the weight assigned to CO2, which they claim is very flat. And so, if I am correct, they have trapped themselves. Do you know if any of their models can produce the MWP?

“We hope our series of meetings this year will dispel some of the long standing climate change myths, while confirming others with solid scientific evidence.”
============
Good luck with that.
I mean the “hope” part.
The confirmation part, will be debated by those willing to produce their data and methods.

David A asks: “Do you know if any of their models can produce the MWP?”

I don’t know about compatibility with MWP, but a recent paper by Schmittner (from Oregon State!) found that at least the “fat upper tail” of IPCC estimates of climate sensitivity are incompatible with the last glacial maximum:

High sensitivity climate models – more than 6 degrees – suggest that the low levels of atmospheric CO2 during the Last Glacial Maximum would result in a “runaway effect” that would have left the Earth completely ice-covered.

Somebody must have backtested to the MWP. About the Schmittner paper Pat Michaels writes:

The Schmittner et al. results join a growing number of papers published in recent years which, by employing investigations of the earth’s paleoclimate behavior (that is, how the earth’s temperature changes in the past when subject to changing climate forcings) have come to somewhat similar conclusions, especially regarding the (lack of) evidence to support the existence of the fat right-hand tail.

For example, researchers James Annan and Julia Hargreaves published a paper in 2009 that concluded many of the assumptions underlying the possibilities of very high climate sensitivities were unjustified.

The citations in these papers probably include some of the papers Michaels is talking about.

Louis said:
“No disrespect to Dr. Hulbe, but “Sustainability” and “Science Communication” are not geology courses and have no place in a geology curriculum.”

Sorry Louis but I disagree. With each year science is playing a greater role in the life of almost everyone. There is little doubt, when the dust settles on the AGW fraud, science communication will be more important than ever. The vast majority o the general public does not and can not understand the subtleties of science. This opens up the opportunities of pseudo-science pushers to advance their agendas. Teaching people how to communicate science is never a bad thing as it empowers the public to challenge any and all science. Science is NEVER settled. You know the way science is supposed to be done.

Every chance to educate the methods of science communication should be encouraged. The MSM has done a terrible job.

juanslayton says:
March 28, 2012 at 7:40 pm
“We hope our series of meetings this year will dispel some of the long standing climate change myths, while confirming others with solid scientific evidence.”

Hmm…. So they’re trying to confirm some myths?
—————————————————————————
I can’t wait to see the two lists. Your “catch” fits with this statement about writing:To string incongruities and absurdities together in a wandering and sometimes purposeless way, and seem innocently unaware that they are absurdities, is the basis of the American art, if my position is correct.
[MARK TWAIN, “How to Tell a Story”]

I can imagine that in order to account for the MWP as driven by CO2 one would have to assume the very same high sensitivities to CO2 that are ruled out by the last glacial maximum. The implication then would be that CO2 cannot have been responsible for the MWP.

Another thought for David:
I can imagine that in order to account for the MWP as driven by CO2 one would have to assume the very same high sensitivities to CO2 that are ruled out by the last glacial maximum. The implication then would be that CO2 cannot have been responsible for the MWP.

What’s left? The sun.
—————————————————————
Exactly Alec, my thought is that the CAGW proponents, having trapped themselves into the original flat line T, flat line CO2 H.S. studies, (In order to match the predicted CO2 plus feed backs) had to minimalize all other forcings, mainly solar, which your article, referencing the scientific literature, demonstrates to have a far stronger correlation (50% to 85% of climate history can be statistically explained by solar changes) to climate history then CO2.

I do understand that the team” slowly put back in a little MWP, but what parameters would they be required to adjust in order to produce a past history such as is demonstrated in the Lehole study?
I have challenged any CAGW proponent to show an ANY IPCC model, which, given the known forcing flux of the past 1,000 to 2,000 year history, (flat line CO2) can generate a MWP as warm or warmer then the current temperature. So far every CAGW proponent has run from the challenge.

This is why, in my view, the Hockey Stick reconstructions matter. The CAGW proponents claim, as did Steven Mosher recently, that the H.S. reconstructions do not really matter, but I say that if the MWP is real, this alone destroys the ‘C’ in CAGW. Is my logic sound? Who gets to play with the models to try and produce this? Is Richard Lindzen allowed to play with the models? Could he see what parameters, besides CO2 , would be required to be adjusted in order to demonstrate a true MWP. Would those parameters then match his CO2 senstivity observations? Would positive cloud and W/V feedback have to be tunned down?. Would solar forcing have to be tunned up to meet the statistical observations? Why, after billions of dollars, has this not been done? If my conjecture is correct, then the debate would be focused on the reality of the MWP, and I do not think the proponents really want to go there, but they should be forced to.

Perhaps the greatest importance of the stalled temperature increase these past 15 years (even Phil Jones acknowledges that there has been no statistical warming these past 15 years) is that it is making it very difficult to argue that there is high sensitivity to CO2. If this temperature plateau continues, perhaps within the course of the next 5 years it will be all but impossible to argue high sensitivity.

I envisage that the claims for high sensitivity will have to be dropped within the next 5 or so years. This would be a game changer because once high sensitivity is dropped, one is looking more at AGW rather than CAGW. The response to these is fundamentally different since it is difficult to support the presently favoured mitigation approach if one is dealing only with AGW. If there is only AGW, the case for adaption rather than mitigation becomes overwhelming.

Louis said:
“No disrespect to Dr. Hulbe, but “Sustainability” and “Science Communication” are not geology courses and have no place in a geology curriculum.”

Sorry Louis but I disagree. With each year science is playing a greater role in the life of almost everyone. There is little doubt, when the dust settles on the AGW fraud, science communication will be more important than ever. The vast majority o the general public does not and can not understand the subtleties of science. This opens up the opportunities of pseudo-science pushers to advance their agendas. Teaching people how to communicate science is never a bad thing as it empowers the public to challenge any and all science. Science is NEVER settled. You know the way science is supposed to be done.

Every chance to educate the methods of science communication should be encouraged. The MSM has done a terrible job.

RobW, I’m with Louis on this one. Sustainability is a very important topic but is easily addressed within existing geology courses. In Geology 101, for example, you can learn about the composition of the crust, common minerals, the rarity of mineral deposits, the scale of mining, major mineral districts and the total resources of world-class deposits. In Economic Geology you study these issues in greater detail and by the time you graduate you have a pretty good idea of sustainability. But “Science Communication”. What does this mean for a geologist or geophysicist who will typically enter the mining or oil & gas industry? They would be far better served taking courses on coping with the boredom of processing seismic traces or the irritations of getting eaten by mosquitoes.

I recall the days of university geology and geophysics. The geology students hated geophysics and chemistry. The geophysics students hated geology. If you allow these people to take soft courses such as “Science Communication” instead we will graduate smooth-talking know-nothings. I can hear the boss now “he can’t map an outcrop, he can’t use a compass, he doesn’t even know how to use a GPS – but is he ever a good communicator”.

The news media is starting to get wise about the climate of Oregon. Hasso Hering of the Albany Democrat-Herald in Oregon mentions recent work from the Univ of Washington about the cooling climate of the Willamette Valley as measured in Corvallis, home of Oregon State University and Phil Mote:

We have experienced cooling over the past 20 years (1992-2012) of -1.0 to -1.5 deg F at undeveloped and rural farmland sites in Washington and Oregon. And yet 10 years ago, before I was dimissed as Washington Associate State Climatologist, Phil Mote would tell everyone our climate was now dominated by man-made global warming and the temperature was headed up, up, up.

Perhaps the most reliable rural climate record for the state of Washington is maintained 25 miles NW of Richland WA on the Hanford Reservation. Annual mean temperatures at the Hanford climate station have come full circle. At the beginning of the record the initial 5-yr mean was 53.0 F from 1945-49. 65 years later the most recent 5-yr mean temperature from 2007-2011 also stood at 53.0 F. The Hanford climate has COOLED by -2.1 F over the past twenty years from a 5-yr mean of 55.1 F in 1990 to 53.0 today. Today’s (2007-2011) climate is cooler by -0.5 F than the 67-year period of record mean of 53.5 F. Annual temperatures over the past 5 years have been comparable to those measured in the 1970s. Here is a plot of the past 67 years of annual mean temperature at Hanford:

I think there are a lot of people living in western oregon who would love to have some control over their local weather. It does drizzle a lot up there. Climate change control may be the local holy grail.

Would love to have this guy on the panel. The ODA and ODF work together to give us spin-free information on growing conditions 3 months ahead. Scan the second to last page of the pdf to see what I mean.

richard verney says:
March 29, 2012 at 4:36 am
(even Phil Jones acknowledges that there has been no statistical warming these past 15 years)

I just wish to clarify the word “statistical”. Over 2 years ago, Phil Jones said in response to a question:
“B – Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming

Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level.”

Now, two years later, there has been no warming at all over the last 15 years. Once the February anomaly of about 0.19 is entered, then there will be even an extremely slight negative slope value for 15 years and either 1 month or 2 months. What can be said at the present time is that there has been no statistical warming these past 17 years. (I have been challenged on this statement before so let me just say I am using Phil Jones’ criteria as to what is significant.)

That bit of snow that Hasso saw was recorded at the official station just off 20, a quarter mile
north of Hyslop Station. I live 7 miles due west, and we had 15″ of heavy wet snow, not
the light snow down on the valley floor. There is still snow in my yard.